


The Fimbulwinter

by YummyFoods



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Like REALLY sad Thor, One Shot, Sad Thor, it hurt to write this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-15 02:26:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18489385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YummyFoods/pseuds/YummyFoods
Summary: Fimbulwinter: the harsh winter that precedes the end of the world and puts an end to all life on Earth. Thor's own fimbulwinter begins with the snap of a finger.





	The Fimbulwinter

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I got the idea for this little tidbit when I watched Infinity War back when it was in theaters, but it took me a bit to put it on paper. I don't usually write such gloomy stuff, so I'm really open to any feedback you may have.
> 
> Just a head's up: I really like mythology and old languages. When I write Thor-related stuff I tend to add a bit more Norse mythology and some actual Old Norse words. I don't speak Modern or Old Norse, but I have studied Old English and linguistics, so I've got that going for me, which is nice.
> 
> Stormbreaker=Hríðlemjar (The "ð" is pronounced like the "th" of "there.") Because "Mjolnir" is in Norse, so why wouldn't Stormbreaker be as well? Also, I think it sounds way more badass.
> 
> Fimbulwinter: In Norse mythology, it is the harsh winter that precedes the end of the world and puts an end to all life on Earth.

Shh.

It had started so long ago that Thor couldn't recall the first time he heard it. It had been so faint that he couldn't even give it a name. A single footfall down a marble hall, a clap that marked a somber march.

"You should have aimed for my head."

_Shh._

So gradually that he had not even realized, it had grown more swift. It had come to torture him even in his slumber. Sometimes he thought that it was the sound of Gungnir greeting the halls of Asgard with each step the Allfather took. Other times, he thought it to be a branch of Yggdrasil being snapped. Still other times it sounded like the flutter of Huginn and Muninn's ebony wings.

"What...what have you done? What have you done?!"

_**Shh.** _

And now, as he watched the last people in existence that meant something to him turn to ash before his very eyes, as he tasted defeat and desolation, the sounds came without pause between one another, a mad cacophony that drowned out the anguish of a world halved, of a people whose hearts had been sundered in a moment.

The god had spent the very last tatters of his strength and hope with the swing of the axe. The fight with Hela had wrung him dry, and not even a full day had passed when Thanos had boarded their ship, taking with him not only the Space Stone but the absolute last of his people and the two souls who meant the most to him in all of the Nine and beyond. Until that motley band had found him, he thought he would drift into oblivion.

He had wished for it.

But Thor Odinson was yet a king. He may have lost his land and his people, but they were all in Valhalla and Folkvangr with his father and mother, watching and waiting for their king to bring them the justice they all deserved.

He had let them down in life, but he would not let them down in death.

So he had sworn, and of all the brave men and women that fought against Thanos that day none had done more than he.

In the end, their toils had been for naught.

_**Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh** _

The sound was so loud now that it felt as though it were a great chasm that he stood before, as welcoming as it was unknown. There was a time when Thor would have ignored its siren song without a thought, when he would have wiped away the blood and despair, straightened his shoulders, and began planning the next offensive.

That time was long gone.

His body and soul utterly spent, the God of Thunder's eyes eased closed as he allowed himself to fall into the black abyss that consumed his heart.

Briefly, before he was completely swallowed up by the sound he still couldn't name, he realized what Loki must have felt like when he had chosen to fall from the Bifrost and into the maw of the expanse. Thor could only pray that when he awoke, he would be taken to where his brother and the rest of his kin were.

He awoke to the unpleasant sensation of hands all over him. The mortals were trying to remove him from the battlefield but struggling to heft his bulky Asgardian frame. He batted them away to stand on surprisingly steady feet.

Steve Rogers was speaking to him, his brow furrowed in a soul-deep fatigue, but his words could not be heard over the roar of that  _incessant_  noise. In his state of exhaustion it sounded like mad hornets filling his head.

"I am leaving," Thor said plainly.

There was surprise followed by opposition, but he was a god. They could do nothing to stop him. He took Stormbreaker in hand and with a few swings of his wrist he was soaring up into the skies with no particular destination in mind. Should he go towards a desolate desert or to the center of the sizzling sun? There was little difference now.

He allowed his strange new weapon to carry him where it pleased, half-heartedly taking in the way in which the wooden shaft had already molded to his grip. Such was the power of the noblest of trees, even as a sapling.

As Hríðlemjar bore him further away Thor could not help but reminisce about Mjolnir, the trusty tool that had saved him uncountable times in the past centuries. Though it had not been his intention, it had been a gift from none other than Loki…

At the thought of his brother a dagger-sharp pain pierced his chest. He took in a gasp of frigid ozone and attempted to quell his feelings lest they rise any further. It was all he could do to hold on to the haft; he could not also manage his grief.

Perhaps the axe grew weary as well, for they began to curve downward now. The earth rushed up to greet the god with outstretched arms swathed in white gossamer. His sandals sank immediately and deeply into the crisp snow of the mountain peak. His cape billowed about in the biting gusts, and already he could feel the chill beginning to sink into him from his toes.

_Yes,_  he decided. This was fitting. This place would serve as his fimbulwinter, the three-year winter whose cold and dark was replete and whose coming heralding the start of the End.

Everything he loved had been destroyed by Ragnarok, and if the humans' fairytales held half as much truth as they did whimsy, it would claim him soon as well.

The peak Thor's axe had brought him to was beyond solitary. At the precipice it was too inhospitable for even the hardiest beasts, and no humans dared attempt to climb its steep and treacherous face. Though it seemed that at least one other being had sought the same level of desolation, for he had found a very small shanty nestled against a jagged rock outcropping. It was made of sturdy oaken logs carefully stacked atop another with ice acting as the mortar. Three walls were of wood and the other was the icy stone it leaned against, and the floor was just the mountain itself. There were no windows, and the door was just one thick slice of an especially broad log.

Inside, no fixtures or comforts awaited him. It was just as cold and barren within as it was without, and something in that fact resonated within the God of Thunder. It was so small that when he sat against the sharp black rock and stretched out his legs that his sandals nearly touched the door.

The howling winds came and went through the cabin shrieking, bringing with them an icy mist of snow that somehow made it through the magical ice mortar.

Thor rested Hríðlemjar beside him and looked to it for a long moment, taking in each grain of wood that was so much like the wrinkles of the wizened. It was a shame that such a fine weapon would be lost here until the next forlorn soul happened across it.

He knew that there was still a war to be fought. That Thanos was in the cosmos somewhere resting on his laurels. That his people had yet to be avenged. That it was his duty as King of Asgard and Protector of Midgard to right these wrongs, or to keep trying until he reached the halls of Valhalla.

It was true that his body was not yet broken. But with each loss he had been dealt, starting with his mother and ending ultimately in not only his entire realm but also his people and friends and—the sensation of icy daggers was back—his brother, a little piece of his hope and will had been chipped away.

Knowing that they had failed, that  _he_  had failed to land the blow that could have averted the cosmic genocide, was a crushing burden. As penance he would sit here in this wasteland and reflect on himself until he could do so no longer.

So Thor sat, coldness slowly but surely seeping into him through his fingers and toes and closer, closer to his heart, filling him with a numbness that was...oddly cathartic. He did not want to feel the metal of his armor against his chest, nor did he want to feel the unforgiving fist of Loss around his soul. The only thing he desired was to be borne away from this cruel reality.

He thought back to his earliest memories, to his childhood in the golden halls and bountiful plains of Asgard. How simple his existence had been in those days. He was Thor Odinson, first in line to the throne of Asgard, the finest warrior to be found, and when his father abdicated he would take a wife and raise a family and kingdom, meting out mercy and malice as circumstance dictated. Loki Odinson with all of his intellect and charm would be his closest adviser and ambassador, and together they would rule the Nine justly.

As the decades gave way to centuries Thor began to see that life more closely resembled the knotted, obscured roots of Yggdrasil than it did its uniform branches. The truth on a man's face and in a man's heart were often two drastically disparate things, and being able to discern both was a talent necessary for the throne.

He had thought himself inured to the sting of lies from an early age thanks to his brother. However, in nearly two millennia he had never felt more betrayed than when he learned that not only had Odin hidden the existence of their sister from him; he had actively imprisoned her.

When the truth of Loki's heritage had come to light, there had been much whispermongering that his treachery and deceit were Frost Giant traits, but Thor began to wonder if his brother hadn't learned the art of deception from the Allfather himself.

He began to question everything that he thought he knew of his home and family that he had once prided. To know that beneath the glittering halls and verdant fields ran a river of blood and torment that his family had inflicted was hard to swallow.

Odin had said more than once that he had pitied the lone Frost Giant infant during their siege on Jotunheim and brought him home to raise as his own, as a symbol of peace. Now aware of just how far his father would go to establish his rule, Thor wondered if the Allfather hadn't stolen Loki from the cradle as a way to ensure that Laufey would remain docile.

Thor was an idealist, but he was no fool. He knew that there was a filthy underbelly to rule that was not fit to show the people, and that it was necessary to hide some deeds for the best of all. Now the thunder god wondered, had his father's delicate web of lies paid off? Had robbing Loki from the Jotuns kept them subservient? Had sealing away Hela and washing their bloodstained hands kept the Realms together? As far as he could see, each lie had only left them more vulnerable.

If he had a chance to do it all over again, to go back and rewrite the deeds of his family, what would he have done? As he pondered over the past, cold and fatigue slowly crept into him until he was overcome and his eyes fell closed.

* * *

"Thor. Thor, big guy."

At his name, the blond was tugged from the icy respite of sleep and he opened his eyes slowly. Once they focused he was met with the familiar visage of none other than Steve Rogers, who stood at the door of the cabin looking as golden as he had when they had first met. He was clean-shaven and his eyes were not the dull sapphires he had seen at the end but sunkissed oceans that spoke of promising horizons.

Thor stared at him blankly. The cold seemed to have numbed not only his body but also his mind, but that did not bother him in the slightest. Absently he wondered just how long he had been asleep, and how Steve had managed to find him. After a moment of this he decided that it did not matter one way or the other.

"You hid yourself away pretty well up here," the captain commented, giving Thor an unreadable look. He hadn't brought his trusty shield with him and he crossed his arms when the thunder god gave no response or even blinked. "We've got a plan to find Thanos and take him out," he said earnestly, "and we need you to help. You can use Hríðlemjar to harness the Bifrost and transport us to him, and we can get the revenge we all seek."

Something stirred feebly within him at this news. He hadn't known that Stormbreaker could control the Bifrost, but considering its composition he supposed it wasn't a surprise.

Long ago, even the faintest possibility of battle and retribution would have had his blood pumping full tilt, but he felt nothing. Rogers was a good man—too good to understand that there was no such thing as justice in this existence—and Thor lacked the will to make him understand.

When Thor gave no sign that he had even heard the man, Steve's lips turned to a sharp frown. "Don't you want to help us? What happened to being a member of the Avengers?"

Thor had tried to help. Oh, how he had tried. And look at how he had bumbled it. He was through helping.

The Avenger continued speaking at him for a while longer, but eventually even the mulish soldier realized that his words fell on deaf ears.

He looked down upon the fallen god with pity as he said quietly, "We're all waiting for you," and then the cabin was silent and solitary once more.

* * *

When Thor awoke next, it was to a new intruder come to pester him.

"You sure do know how to find somewhere remote. Next time I need to get away from it all I might come here."

Banner flashed Thor a small smile. Thor stared through him and to some unknown plane.

Upon seeing the blond's dull, deadened gaze, Banner's smile faded quickly. "Steve told me you were bad off, but he didn't tell me you were a zombie. Look, we all went through a lot, and we all lost a lot that day. We're all hurting because of that, but we're the only ones with the power to set things right."

How did he know that it was they who had to fix the cosmos? Whenever a man took it upon himself to save the world he caused nothing but more suffering. Odin had saved and unified the Nine Realms only to lose them all. Thor had saved his brother and his people only to watch helplessly as their lives were extinguished. He had tried again to save all, and that too had ended in catastrophe.

It was clear to him that if anyone could right this ruined existence, it was not him.

"Thor, c'mon, man. Why don't you at least say something? I scaled this whole mountain as the Green Guy just to come and get you." When Thor didn't so much as blink in reply, he said, "Jane is asking after you."

So she had survived. This revelation did not awaken anything within his chilled heart. He knew that a Midgardian could never sit on the throne of Asgard, and she knew that her place was with her science and not magic and matters of the state. The two had parted amicably, and for a spell he had felt loss, but it had been the correct decision for them both. Even if she clamored for him, it would not be enough to drag him out of his fimbulwinter.

Banner continued to entreat him to no avail, and after awhile relented.

"Listen, Thor," he said, his hand on the door as he turned back to cast a mournful look upon his friend, "We've all done things we wish we could take back. But if you let yourself rot away here you'll never get the chance to make it all right again."

He left, and the softest of relieved sighs left Thor's lips.

* * *

Thor did not know how much time had passed between Banner's visit and the next unwelcome guest, but vaguely he noticed that his armor hung loosely on his frame, and his fingernails had taken on a bluish hue from the Jotunheim-esque chill. This was glad news.

"Keep this up and you're gonna lose your status as Hottest God of the Year, Point Break."

He had always found the Man of Iron's speech to be the most bemusing, and this was before his mind was made torpid by cold and hunger. Now it came across as near gibberish.

"Hey, Sparky." The man snapped his fingers before the god's face, and when Thor didn't so much as blink in response he gave a low whistle. "I don't get it. Is this some kind of self-imposed meditation? New wave yoga? Whatever it is, it's not doing you any favors."

He paused, waiting for Thor to say something back, to give some sign of life other than the faintest of icy breaths, and when none came he resumed his usual swift, flippant speech. "Look, human ice sculpture contest, yeti apprenticeship, whatever you're doing up here, you need to wrap it up. The entire universe is waiting for us to save it, and we are waiting for  _you._  You have the key to stopping Thanos, and it's freezing to the wall right now."

They certainly thought highly of Hríðlemjar, which was surprising because it had done no good before. What made them think it could do any better this time?

When he failed to get a reaction out of the Asgardian for a second time in a row, unbridled irritation marred Stark's features. He might have been formidable had Thor cared for his well being.

"You know what? We have  _all_  lost people we hold dear because of the mistakes we've made. But running away from the world and waiting to die is the most selfish, cowardly thing anyone could do."

Those words almost stung, but their barbs failed to penetrate the ice around Thor's heart. He knew that he was selfish. He knew that he was cowardly. He knew full-well of his shortcomings, and that was why he had come to a place where he could not inflict them upon anyone else.

Thor didn't so much as give a twitch of his fingers, and Tony gave a huff of rageful despair. He had known from the moment he laid eyes on the god's slight frame that it was a fool's errand, yet he had still tried. He resembled Rogers in more ways than either realized.

"None of us blame you for what happened that day," Tony said, swallowing hard, "but if you don't get your shit together, and do it  _fast,_  there's not going to be anything anybody can do to fix this, and that's on you."

With one final, searing look, the Man of Iron left.

The cabin was once again quiet but for the wind, whose howls seemed just as accusatory and biting as Stark's words.

How much longer would it take for the wind to leave him as well?

* * *

"Thor."

His eyes were much harder to keep open this time, and the frigid air rattled through the space between his armor and skin. But this was a voice that he could not resist harkening to, for no one could fail to heed the Allfather.

"Why do you allow yourself to wither away?"

His father stood before him in robes spun of gold cloth that matched the splendorous hues of Asgard's fabled halls. Halls that Thor would never look upon again, and this thought made his heart heavy.

Thor despised those who would blame their failures on others, and he had accepted the blame for Thanos' victory the moment he had snapped his fingers. But the blame for Asgard and her people's destruction surely rested with Odin more than it did with Thor or his siblings.

Had it been another time, he would surely have shouted the king down until he resembled the shriveled, feeble man Thor knew him to be at his core. He would have demanded to know why he had built the foundation of their people with heinous deeds and then paved over them all with a facade of glittering perfection. He would have struck his own father until he revealed why he thought it was acceptable to conceal the truth of his children until it broke them.

But the time for speaking had come to a close. He had no guarantee that the Allfather would tell him the truth anyways, and the explanation would mean nothing since those who needed to hear it most were already long past salvation.

"What do you think that you will accomplish by absconding? You are King of the Nine Realms now, and you have Hríðlemjar at your side, as well as Gungnir if you deigned to use it. Even this Thanos could not stand up to your might if you chose to strike him down."

Was this all that they could talk about? Thor marveled at how his mind endeavored to conjure these mirages with the same message no matter how close he teetered towards death. How many more would his brain make him endure before it realized what his heart already had long before?

Odin was silent for several long moments and the wind roared around them. When he next spoke, it was a soft murmur that carried over the gusts and struck him in his heart deeper than any arrow could.

"What would Frigga think, to see her son like this?"

Thor took a shuddering gasp, and his lungs ached with the unfamiliar strain. Odin may have been a monster, but his mother had truly been the fairest person in all the Nine. Smart, staid, and kind, she had never done an unjust thing and Thor idolized her. He knew beyond doubt that she would be pained to see him in his self-imposed fimbulwinter awaiting the end of days.

Yet he also knew that she was wise enough to understand when a battle had been lost. He had done his best, but he was  _tired._  She would forgive him, he was certain.

The Allfather stared at his son for a spell, and Thor watched a tear get lost in valleys of his wrinkled, grizzled face before he faded. He prayed that this was the last visitation.

* * *

"...so pitiful."

Thor felt as though he were at the bottom of an ocean, the weight of the leagues pressing down upon him. He could not move, he could not open his eyes, and the words of this intruder came to him distorted and faded.

"...hadn't dreamt… ...this bad…"

Who was it? The cadence was familiar, bone-achingly so, but the cold had at last slowed his mind as much as it had his heartbeat and he couldn't seem to recall. Yet beneath the warm nostalgia was an unsettling shade of incongruence. Of all the visitors possible, he was not one of them.

For the God of Thunder had seen him broken and purpled, and the moment he had locked eyes with his glassy, dull gaze, his soul had trembled and crumbled with the realization that this time, there was no trick.

"Brother, why…? ...my plans, again…"

He would have laughed, had he the energy. It was only too fitting that his mind would conjure the visage of Loki in the final moments of his fimbulwinter. His brother would no doubt scoff at his predictability.

"...answer me."

Even though he knew beyond doubt that this was a mere mirage like the others before it, Thor found himself wanting to see him once more. Be it a memory, a hallucination, it mattered not. There was no other person he longed for more than his brother, whose silver tongue granted him the gift of deception but also of consolation. He could cut through the fat and gristle and strike upon the heart of the matter with a single utterance when he chose, and Thor had always valued this skill of his. He wondered what his brother would tell him now, when the world was ruined and the blame rested squarely upon his shoulders.

Through a fair amount of effort, the golden god managed to open his eyes. His vision was blurry as if his eyes had frosted over like panes of glass, but he could make out brown swaths that were the walls, and a black blur with bits of gold and rich, verdant green here and there.

"What did this to you, Brother?"

Loki sounded pained. It was Thor's instinct as big brother to reach out and comfort him, but his limbs would not obey.

"There are draugr that look more alive than you," the prince said. What he had surely meant to come out as one of his usual jabs sounded like a distraught observation, however.

Thor honestly couldn't guess how long his fimbulwinter had been raging. Prophecies and legends claimed three years would pass before it came to a close, though, and he could feel the end was near. His armor hung off him limply as though he were a child playing dress up, and a glance to his hands resting on atrophied thighs showed flesh stretched tight over bone and nothing more.

The raven-haired god grew upset. "I knew that my death would bring you unhappiness, but to think that  _you_  would fall into despair as I did on the Bifrost… Thor, you are stronger than this."

Yes, he was strong. The strongest on all of Asgard and perhaps beyond when dirty trinkets like Infinity Stones were ignored. It had been the trait he prided himself over above all others at one time. But his strength hadn't been enough to save his home, his family, or the Nine, and it meant nothing to him now.

"This is madness, Thor," Loki continued, kneeling down beside him. He was so close now that Thor could see him more clearly, and relief washed over him to realize that his mind had been kind enough to bestow upon him a visage of Loki that was free of the ugliness of his demise. He looked as whole and hale as ever, minus the deep concern that marred his brow.

"You utter oaf," he spat. "How is it that you always manage to ruin my plans, even when you do not intend to? I thought the illusions of the Hulk or Father would be enough to return you to your senses, but you have sunk so much further than I thought possible. Why must you do this to me?"

The mirage of Loki reached into a small leather pouch at his hip and withdrew something so tantalizing that the mere sight of its shimmering golden glow melted the permafrost over his five senses. One of Idunn's golden apples rested in his palm, the item responsible for Asgardian nobles' immortality. But the orchard was surely destroyed by Surtur and Hela—there could never be another harvest.

One of his trusty knives appeared in his free hand and he cut a slice of the fruit and held it before Thor's dry lips.

"Eat," Loki ordered, "and stop this nonsense."

Thor was salivating at the sight of the apple's golden skin and pure white flesh, and its sweet fragrance was more alluring than any perfume. He could imagine the satisfying  _crunch_  that would sound as he bit into it and then the explosion of sweet and sourness that would overwhelm him.

Loki had always been one to tempt him and bring out his selfish impulses, and his illusion was no different. If he took a bite of it, his penance would become for naught. It wouldn't be just if he were to regain his vitality with a mere bite while so many others were resting in premature graves because of his actions.

It took all his strength and willpower to turn his cheek away from his brother and Idunn's apple.

He didn't need to see the God of Chaos' expression to envision the wrathful snarl contorting his features. His voice was full of bitter resentment as he growled, "So the Golden Son of Asgard failed, so he wasn't the hallowed hero everyone had built him up to be. That doesn't mean that you can mire yourself in despair and leave the rest of the world to rot. Asgard must be rebuilt. Our people must be avenged and brought back. The rightful king must sit upon the throne, and none of that can begin until you remember your purpose."

Thor knew full-well his purpose. He was a protector of realms, a servant of the people, and he had let down everyone. He had proven that his purpose was ill-fitted, and he had resolved to let these burdens fall upon more capable shoulders. Frankly, he was a bit disappointed with this illusion. The real Loki would have hit the mark on the first try.

When his elder brother gave no response, Loki's vitriol only increased. "Why did you come to this godforsaken hovel to die? Did you forget my words to you when we last met?" Of course Thor had not forgotten them. He remembered every single word his brother had ever spoken to him since childhood. "I told you that the sun would shine upon us once again, and what did you think I meant by that? I tried to make it easy enough that your simple mind could decode it, but it seems that I overestimated your intelligence once again.

"The sun wasn't the Starforge; it was Idunn's apples, you imbecile. I was going to get the fruit once more so that we could increase the Asgardians and rebuild our home, so that no matter what happened with Thanos, the Nine could still exist."

This was certainly a revelation to Thor. The Allfather had warned him that Idunn's apples could not transform a Midgardian into an Asgardian, and that they could only bestow longevity upon Asgardians. Had this been another lie? At this point, he was willing to believe the Liesmith over his father.

But, Thor remembered with a renewed wave of sadness, this was not Loki before him. He and the apple he offered were nothing more than the works of his cruel imagination. Even if Thor were to bite into the fruit, his mouth would close down upon thin air, and he would be left to perish with the nothing but the knowledge that even in death he had failed to uphold his resolve.

He could think of nothing more disgraceful.

Suddenly, a warm hand and slender but strong fingers gripped his chin and he was jerked none-too-gently to face the ghost of his brother. Loki was positively thunderous, and in the depths of the emerald maelstroms of his gaze was fury that bordered madness. "I have lost the only parents, the only home, the only people I have ever known, and now you would rob me of the sole thing left tethering me to sanity? You would take from me the only person I have ever truly loved,  _for what?_  For pride sundered, promises trampled? You can yet restore your honor, uphold your forsworn vows, but only if you will it. Now EAT."

His emotion had risen to crescendo, and his final command drowned out the howling of the winds and shook the walls.

Thor didn't even blink.

Loki's twisted mask of wrath fell away to reveal a despair so powerful it crumpled his expression into a grimace. He was still holding out the sliver of the apple, but his hand trembled and his eyes glistened with tears he was too proud to let fall.

"Please, Brother," he pled, his voice cracking under the weight of his fear, " _eat._  Don't leave me all alone."

He pressed the apple against Thor's lips, and when Thor pursed them in refusal Loki gave a choked sob and renewed his efforts. He couldn't keep the tears at bay any longer and they flowed freely, streaking down his pale cheeks in arrow-straight lines.

The cold had numbed Thor of all physical and emotional sensation, but seeing his beloved brother more distraught than ever before awakened the ferocious desire to shield him from all that would harm him. It was as sudden, bright, and powerful as the Bifrost being opened, and in that moment, illusion or not, Thor would have given up every remaining tatter of his honor to still Loki's tears.

The King of Asgard closed his cracked lips around the apple and bit down. The crisp  _crunch_  of it sounded like the last swing of an axe felling a mighty tree, and a cacophony of vibrant flavors barraged his tastebuds. He took a great gasp of icy air and hacked and coughed as his lungs remembered what to do with it, his jaw and throat struggled to respond and swallow as he commanded them to, but he did it.

Loki was so stunned that his sobs had stopped. The always-guarded always-plotted God of Deception's mouth had dropped open in disbelieving hope.

"I could never," Thor rasped, "say no to you when you cried. ...You know that."

Loki wrapped his warm arms around his brother and pulled him to his chest, and the God of Thunder was overcome with a gladness so fierce that he thought it would cause him to burst into a thousand pieces.

_Loki was alive._

_**He**_   _was alive._

The raven-haired god was slicing up more of the apple, muttering about how  _stupid_  Thor was for making him go to all this trouble, how much of a hassle he was for making him abandon his perfectly faked death, how there was nothing the Odinsons couldn't do when they were united, how Thanos would receive a fiery retribution the likes of which would be sung for millennia in all of the Nine.

And for the first time he could remember, the unending roar of pain and loss that had been plaguing him for eons had finally ceased. All that was left was Loki's dulcet baritone, the soft swishes of the knife through the apple, and supple crunches as Thor ate and regained his strength.

He would need every last ounce of power he could muster, if he and Loki were to rebuild their kingdom and restore order to the Nine.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thanks for reading. I'd love to get any input on what you thought, since this is quite the departure from what I usually write. I was just so overcome with sadness for Thor that I felt compelled to write this. Thanks again, and see ya!


End file.
